Ruffled Feathers
by MouseMaster42
Summary: Twoshot. Pillow fight at SPR? What craziness is this? It's my first published fanfiction, so I'm not too great at summaries...Naru x Mai. Hope you enjoy.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Ghost Hunt and all of its characters belong to Shiho Inada and Fuyumi Ono. I do not own any of them. You can tell, because if I did, Naru would do things like THIS more often. **

**This is my first published fanfiction. Please Read, Enjoy, and then Review. **

**Mai's POV**

"You're such a jerk!" I spat, slamming Naru—stupid Naru!—'s office door shut. Why didn't he ever listen to me! He could at least acknowledge me or something! But just _sitting_ there…! It annoyed the heck out of me!

And_ then_ (oh yes, there's more!) when I sort of cleared my throat and very-very oh-so-sweetly said "you're welcome," (I mean, it was his _ninth_ cup of tea that day that I had to ferry to his bat-cave!) he totally snapped and told me to clear the heck out of his office because he was doing uber-secret secret-ghost-ninja schmancy stuff that a total idiot like myself obviously wouldn't understand!

Okay _fine_, maybe he didn't say that _exactly_ word-for-word, but that was the basic idea.

But _still!_ It was the principle!

I threw myself into one of SPR's comfy chairs and debated just ditching the rest of today. I mean, I didn't think I'd be able to stay civil if Naru happened to try to speak to me.

He was such a conceited jerk! How the heck could someone so nasty be so...I don't even know! How could he be like that and be so…_perfect!_ It's like he never did anything wrong; he made everything feel like it was _my_ fault! _Which it wasn't! _

Fine, maybe _sometimes_ it was but…

GAH! He was doing it again! I was bashing_ myself_ for_ his_ stupidity without even realizing it! He was brainwashing me!

So why did I delude myself with thinking about him all the time? What made him worth my valuable thought-space? Why did I think I liked him?

I clutched a pillow to my chest and glared down at the carpet, wishing that I had thrown his stupid tea in his face. That would have knocked him down a few pegs. Of, even better, if I had PK instead of my silly dream-power-thingymajigger, I could have thrown his stupid tea in his face without even being in the room. HA!

But…being Naru…he's probably figure it out. It wasn't like _Lin_ would do that. Or maybe he would. Maybe endless-hours of Naru-exposure were actually driving the poor man insane.

Why were the jerks always so _smart!_

I heard Naru's office door creak open slowly behind me. Or, I guess it _could_ have been Lin-San's, but seeing as he had been locked in there all day and showed no sign of requiring basic bodily needs, like the _bathroom_ (the guy must have the bladder of a camel!), I wasn't expecting him to emerge until closing time.

My "amateur deductions" (as Naru would surely call them) were confirmed when I heard a borderline monotonic voice call my name gently.

_Gently? _Please! Naru never did anything gently! He's the sort of guy who'd rather rip the whole band-aid off at once.

"Mai?" he asked again, and I heard his soft footfalls indicating that he was—oh no, was he actually going to _sit next to me? _GAH! What was he _thinking?_

But no, he didn't. Instead, he sat across from me, which was almost worse because I knew that if I looked up, I'd have to face his dark blue eyes that I couldn't seem to look at without losing my train of thought and saying something stupid….

For a moment I entertained the amusing idea of throwing my pillow at him, but that wouldn't help his often-voiced opinion that I always acted childish, so I stopped myself.

After a long awkward silence, Naru finally broke it, saying "I'm sorry if I was a little harsh to you a moment ago."

"'A _little?_'" I echoed incredulously. "You told me to 'go find something else to amuse my obviously smaller-than-average brain!'"

"I didn't say that," he snapped, his eyebrows coming together angrily (except Naru rarely got truly angry—usually just annoyed). "I asked if you could possibly find something else to do because I was busy."

"But the _way_ you said it…" I protested weakly, trying to avoid eye contact at all costs.

He leaned back and crossed his arms. "How did I say it, then?"

I made the mistake of looking up. "Huh?"

"How did I say it?" he repeated, and I noticed that there was something different about his expression. "I don't mean to be…"

"Mean?" I completed, smirking a little despite myself.

His mouth twitched; about as close to a smile as the guy got. "Yeah, pun unintended."

"You were just extremely condescending," I said, answering his original question.

"Aren't I always?" he asked nonchalantly.

I blinked. So he _knew_ he was acting like a jerk? Yet he did it anyway? "Well…_yeah._ I mean, would it _kill_ you to be nice once in a while?"

He frowned again. "We can't be nice all the time, Mai. Look at yourself."

"That's mean!" I cried, feeling myself getting worked up into 'sea-monster-Mai' mode. "Why don't you ever take me seriously? You treat everything I say like it's a joke, or like it's so stupid you can't believe I said it, or you don't say anything about it at all! I _hate_ that! I hate _you!_ I hate you, _Naru!_"

With those harsh words, I finally caved in to my childish impulses and flung the pillow at his head.

It hit him right in the face with a very satisfying _'thwack'_ sound. Then it landed in his lap.

I just started at him for a moment, wondering what he would do. He would probably get mad. Maybe he would shout at me.

I was startled to realize that I didn't really care. It had felt good. I had wanted to do that for awhile.

To my surprise, he started to laugh.

I raised an eyebrow, wondering what the heck had happened to the Naru that I knew. The Naru I knew _never_ laughed, barely _smiled_.

Yet here he was, his quiet chuckles shaking his shoulders as he looked down at the pillow on his lap. After a moment, he regained his control and looked up at me, something making his eyes sparkle.

"Feel better?" he asked lightly.

"Uhhh…." I deliberated. "Yeah?"

I didn't even see his arm whip around. I just felt the pillow hit my face.

"Are we having a pillow fight now?" I asked seriously as I peeled it off of my stinging nose. Jeez, on top of _everything_ else that Captain Wonderboy was able to do, Naru could also throw a pillow pretty hard.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked, something that sounded a lot like genuine concern in his voice.

"No, but…" I was confused.

"Then an eye for an eye," he said as he stood up and pulled the creases from his shirt. Just like that, he was back to the Naru I recognized. Perfect, refined, sporting the biggest 'holier-than-thou' attitude I had ever come across.

Yet now I suspected that it was all more of a façade than I realized. Underneath all of his suits and smart-ass remarks, Naru was only a year older than me. He was still awkward, he still smiled, he laughed…and he goofed off. He actually _did_ have feelings. He could be really nice and sweet and…_cute_, when he wanted to be.

Wow. _There_ was a real eye-opener.

"Oh, and Mai?" he said as he was about to close the door to his office again.

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry if I ever treat you unfairly," he said slowly, as if making sure that he didn't offend me. "It's just teasing."

"Oh…" I said slowly, trying to decide if I was going to still be mad at him or not. I mean, after all, he had just almost broken my nose with a pillow!

"And you're cute when you get mad," he blurted, as if he hadn't meant to say it, and then closed himself back into his office, leaving me wondering what had gotten into him. It was like the tea had driven him temporarily out of his mind.

Surely _Naru_, Naru the Narcissist who only loved himself, didn't really think that.

He thought I was cute?

Did he?

**Please review! It will make me happy, and then I'll write more fluff like this! Please tell me what I should improve on/what I did well on! **


	2. Chapter 2

**Written by request for **_**Cross your Heart for me**_**, who wanted a second chapter written from Naru's POV. Hence, a one-shot became a two-shot. Such is life. ;) Read and review please!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Ghost Hunt. It belongs to Shiho Inada and Fuyumi Ono. **

**Naru's POV**

"You're such a jerk!" Mai shouted, slamming my office door shut. Judging by her face, I had offended her in some way, but I couldn't figure out what I had done. Considering that it was_ Mai_, it could have just been the way I was holding the cup of tea she had given me. She was an easy person to upset.

Oh…Maybe it was more of what I _said _(or in this case, _didn't_ say) than what I did.

Mai had just ferried a cup of tea to my office and set it on the table as she always did; totally normal. But then she stuck around, looking at me pointedly with her piercing brown eyes. After a moment, she had sarcastically said "you're welcome."

Well how was I _supposed_ to respond to that? Especially when she was looking at me like that; almost daring me to say something smarmy back at her. It wasn't like I could just back down.

Because I didn't want to engage in a verbal fireworks show, I politely asked her to leave, my excuse being that I was working on something important (in reality, I had been staring out the window almost all day, lost in my thoughts, but that was beside the point). Then she had shouted those rude words, spun on her heel, and left.

I glanced at the cup of cooling tea on my desk, wondering if there was something ethically wrong with drinking it. It just seemed wrong, sort of like taking a dead man's watch.

Pushing the tea away, I leaned back in my desk chair. What was I supposed to do now? Usually I didn't care if Mai was in one of her moods, but today it bothered me for some reason. The tension had been building up between us for awhile, and I suppose I knew it would eventually end in a squabble like this.

Which was all this was, really; just a squabble.

I rolled my eyes. I couldn't even lie to myself today.

Mai was probably moping around the office somewhere, probably fantasizing about sticking pins into a Kazuya Shibuya voodoo doll and then setting it on fire. Frankly, I didn't understand why girls were so easy to upset. You only had to do one thing wrong and they snapped at you.

So what now? It wasn't like I could go out there and apologize…right?

Then I remembered Lin and winced. If Lin had heard our argument, I was never going to hear the end of it. Then he would tell Madoka in one of their email conversations, and I would get in even more trouble. I imagined the emails and letters that would haunt me until I made amends: _"how could you be so mean?" "Your parents didn't raise you to let grudges grow," _and the worst;_ "What would Gene do?"_

I knew what Gene would do. Gene wouldn't have said what I said in the first place; he wouldn't have to be told to say thank you.

In many ways, I think Mai would have preferred Gene over me.

But I was all she was getting.

Reaching some odd mental solution that I couldn't put into words, I got up from my chair and walked across the office, cracking open the door slowly to assess the situation before I jumped into it.

Mai was curled up on the sofa, clutching a pillow to her chest. I could only see her shoulders and the top of her head.

_Cute…_

The word echoed in my head before I could stop it, and I instantly choked that line of thought off. I had promised myself I wasn't going to think about her like that.

"Mai?" I asked softly, forcing myself to say her name normally.

Her head lifted a little, but she didn't respond. I walked across the floor towards the chairs, debating where I was going to sit.

After a moment, I decided to sit across from her. When I got a glimpse at her face, I was suddenly glad that I hadn't tried to sit next to her: she looked _mad_. Her face was flushed, her thin eyebrows drawn together over dark chocolate eyes. She held the pillow like she was imagining she was crushing my head. It looked like she would have ripped my arm off if I tried to sit close to her.

There was a long silence where I tried to make eye contact and Mai refused to look at me (why were all girls so stubborn?). Finally, I said awkwardly, "I'm sorry if I was a little harsh to you a moment ago."

"A _little?_" Mai echoed angrily, keeping her eyes firmly riveted on the floor. "You told me to 'go find something else to amuse my obviously smaller-than-average brain!'"

"I didn't say that," I said, trying to keep my voice at a normal tone. Her impression of me was insulting. I didn't talk like that, did I? "I asked if you could possibly find something else to do because I was busy."

"But the_ way_ you said it…" Mai protested, tossing a piece of hair out of her face. For the shortest instant, I imagined my hand tucking that piece behind her ear, and then quickly shot that thought down as well before it could progress. What was wrong with me?

Still trying to be civil, I leaned against the back of the couch and crossed my arms, attempting to appear engaged even though my thoughts were tugging me in an entirely different direction. "How did I say it, then?"

Mai's eyes flashed up to mine, and I instantly wished they hadn't. I immediately lost my train of thought and had to concentrate to realize that Mai had apparently lost hers too. Her grip on the pillow loosened a little.

"How did I say it?" I repeated when she didn't answer, surprised to discover that I was actually interested in her answer. I didn't want to hurt her with what I said. "I don't mean to be…" I trailed off hopelessly.

"Mean…?" she completed, shooting a hopeful smile at me.

I smirked despite myself, and something in the air between us relaxed. "Yeah, pun unintended."

Mai glanced sideways before returning her gaze to me, and then answered my original question, saying, "You were just extremely condescending."

"Aren't I always?" I asked, and then mentally cringed. What a stupid thing to say.

Mai blinked, equally startled by my statement. After a moment, she recovered enough to say, "Well…_yeah._ I mean, would it _kill_ you to be nice once in a while?"

I winced. A poor choice of words on her part. "We can't be nice all the time, Mai. Look at yourself." Look at Gene. Look where his kindness got him.

"That's mean!" Mai exploded, her face flushing in anger again. "Why don't you ever take me seriously?" When had I _not_ taken her seriously? "You treat everything I say like it's a joke, or like it's so stupid you can't believe I said it, or you don't say anything at all! I _hate_ that! I hate _you!_ I hate you, _Naru!_"

Before I had time to think of a good response (how did one respond to _that?_), Mai threw the pillow at my head. I wasn't ready, and it hit me square in the face. Then it slid down onto my lap.

Mai looked startled for a moment, like she hadn't meant to do that. Then her expression relaxed, and she just looked at me curiously.

Her face looked so much like _his_….

My mind cast itself back to when Gene and I were little, and we had fantastic pillow fights ranging all over the house. Nowhere was safe. I remembered a time when I had just crept around a corner, expecting to spring an ambush, when the tables had turned and Gene had flung himself out of a closet to tackle me, and we were rolling around on the floor laughing until Mother and Lin heard the commotion and came upstairs to break it up…

I couldn't help laughing a little at the memory.

Mai raised an eyebrow, and I realized that I had never laughed like this in front of her.

To my surprise, I didn't care as much as I normally would have. Who cares what Mai saw? I could let down the façade a little in front of her.

"Feel better?" I asked lightly after I had stopped chuckling. She still looked skeptical, and her guard was obviously down. All the better then…A small, immature plan formed itself in the back of my head.

"Uhh…" She looked like she didn't know what to say. "Yeah…?"

Without pausing to consider the possible repercussions of my actions, I snatched the pillow from my lap and flung it at her, smirking when it 'thwacked' against her face.

"Are we having a _pillow fight_ now?" she asked as she lowered the pillow, revealing a red mark on her nose. Oops.

"Did I hurt you?" I asked.

"No, but…" she trailed off, obviously embarrassed. Her face was bright red again.

_ Cute…_

I forced myself to stand up and not look at her as I pulled the creases out of my shirt. "Then it's an eye for an eye." _All's fair in love and war._

But this wasn't _love,_ was it?

Mai rolled her eyes, but her face had softened, somehow. I couldn't put my finger on it, but the way she looked at me now was different.

I made a retreat for my office, but something made me turn around and face her again. "Mai?"

She turned around to look at me, startled. "Yeah?"

Feeling like an idiot, I said, "I'm sorry if I ever treat you unfairly. It's just teasing."

"Oh…" she said slowly, her face going red again.

"You're cute when you get mad," I thought, then realized that I said it out loud and nearly slammed the door to my office to make sure that Mai didn't see my resulting blush.

I flung myself into the desk chair, unable to believe what I had just done. I wasn't supposed to be thinking that! What was wrong with me?

_ And yet…_

I glanced at the now cold tea still sitting on my desk from where I had left it.

_And yet, I had spoken the truth. _

**Review please! It will make me happy and inspire me to write more fluff like this!**


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